The production of hybrid field seeds is a complex and sophisticated art. Simply stated, this art involves the development of two inbred parents which are crossed as male and female to produce the hybrid seed to be grown by the farmer. Each of the parent inbreds bring certain characteristics to the hybrid. The crossing of different combinations of inbred parents results in hybrid seed having different plant characteristics when grown. In the case of corn, for example, the pollen from the tassels of the male parent are permitted to pollinate the silks of the ears of the female parent which is not permitted to provide pollen. This general art has substantially enhanced and increased the yield potential of many farm seeds, such as corn and sorghum, since its advent in the 1920's.
Conventionally, hybrid seed is assigned a variety denomination, such as a number of several digits, and these numbers serve to identify the hybrids for both the producer and the farmer purchasing the seed. These numbers characterisically are printed on the seed bags and on tags affixed to the bags. Similarly, these numbers also appear in a producer's brochures and sales material which usually include detailed information concerning the characteristics of the hybrid in question.
There are a plurality of factors that a farmer normally takes into account in selecting a hybrid or variety. For example, in selecting a corn hybrid, a farmer may take into account such factors as the length of the growing season, the anticipated weather conditions of the growing season, and the use to which the resulting crop will be put (i.e., forage or shelled corn). The grower will make his hybrid selection on the basis of what hybrids have the most desirable characteristics for his needs. He may know from prior experience that a given variety may provide at least some of the characteristics which he desires. However, because of the complexity of the process, it is virtually impossible for the average purchaser to mentally retain the plurality of performance data for a plurality of hybrids having different combinations of inbred parents. As a result, recourse is typically made to the producer's manuals which contain the desired information on the different hybrid varieties.
While this process ultimately reveals the desired information, it is time consuming and inefficient. Further, the detailed information needed has heretofore not been available on the hybrid seed bag itself, and this is particularly true of any comparative information between hybrid varieties. Identification of inbred parentage is rarely, if ever, revealed in even the producer's informational publications. As a result, despite the great improvement in the performance of hybrid crops such as corn, a means for instanteously providing the parentage and key characteristics of a hybrid seed on the seed bag has been lacking.